Posts Tagged ‘Reach’

Have you ever wondered how many people you actually reach through those who follow you? Have you wondered how many of those followers are online at the same time you are? Does the information even matter?

If you are selling a service or product you may want to know some of this data, it can help you target and schedule what time to do promotions. You could be doing research on another Twitter account or follower. At best you will be amuzed at the data, it makes me wonder whats happening in the Blogesphere. But make no mistake, if you’re in marketing the information can be a great asset to your marketing toolbox. It can validate or affirm whether what’s happening is real or has potential.

So why even bring this up, I was wondering about reach, I was wondering who at any given time might see what you were Tweeting when you were Tweeting it. Afterall, you want traffic to your blog right? You want traffic to see what you are about and what you do right?

I have to make a disclaimer here, I used just one site for this excerise, Twitter Analyzer, I’m also skeptical of these kinds of sites, why, accuracy, I have no way of proving how accurate the data actually is.

Anyway, let me share a couple things for you to do, you’ll get an idea of what’s happening when you’re not looking. Oh, and be sure to write the data down so you can look at it later.

TWITTER ANALYZER

Step 1

When you first put your name in the dialogue box you have to wait for a short bit, then you will be brought to a page with all the data it was able to extract from Twitter, the first stat is how many Tweets you made for the last week and the current day. It’s not an important number but interesting to see how active you are any given day.

Step 2

While on the User button click on the Popularity button just above it, you will see total mentions and total unique users monitoring. Click on any date on the graph for the details to posted below.

Step 3

Still on the User tab, click on the Reach button above, You can select a date but it will auto-select the current date for you. Three stats will be shown, Unique Readers Reach, Unique Users RTing and Total Update Messages RTed.

Step 4

Now lets click on the FRIENDS tab on the bottom, Click on On-Line Followers button. Here you will see who is online by the hour, it’s an eye opener if you have lots of followers. Even if you don’t it can be an interesting stat, it keeps you humble too : )

Step 5

The next one to look at is the Followers Density Map, this one shows where your followers live by country. Another very interesting stat depending on where you live, the majority of my followers are from the USA, no big surprise, #2 is, GB – Great Britan, and #3 EC – Ecuador! I didn’t see that one coming.

As you can see you can extract some interesting data, there’s alot more you can do at this site like how many followers your followers have by groups. For example, 32% of my followers have 1,000 – 2,000 followers. 11.27% of my followers have 10,000 – 20,000 followers. That appears to be the highest demographic as that’s all it shows me on the high end. The problem is, I happen to know that The Ellen Show is following me and has over 4 million followers, why doesn’t that get reflected in this section? I’m just say’in. Oh and by the way, Paul Rickett sent me this Tweet:

@paulrickett Notice on Twitter analyzer it doesn’t seem to know abt Canada in density reach? Appears to put all Cdns into US!

Have fun checking your stats and your friends stats, if you work for a corporation this information could be very useful. This site and many others can help you answer the question, do you know the depth of your Twitter following?

The topic of ROI is not a new one but it remains to be a stumbling block for most in the Social Media Marketing field. The problem isn’t that an ROI can’t be derived, the challenge is, most are using old ways & thinking to get to that ROI place in an environment that requires you to think differently. Using old practices does not help you get there because the rules have shifted yet once again.

I got into it with a few people on Twitter over the weekend, @CreativeWisdom @kriscolvin, @mackcollier, @thebrandbuilder and @virtualcfo. We bantered back and forth sharing our views, recognizing we could get there with similar but slightly different metrics. My conversation started with Kris & Mack, we actually started with the Quantity vs Quality of Twitter Followers topic and then we moved onto the ROI question. Then Olivier jumped in along with Leah & Scot. There is a distinct difference between ROI & Impact according to Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder), his definition is interesting and reasonable I think. He states, eyeballs are not ROI, Impact is not ROI, ROI can’t be calculated with an equation. In one of Olivier’s video’s I was able to relate to him because of my 15 years in Radio & Television, he uses F.R.Y. (Frequency, Reach, Yield) as a way to get to an ROI.

Scot Justice made this statement, “You can capture cost of Social Media by implementing a procedure where every prospect is asked about a blog then Calculate SM$ per impression then ROI”. That is an old school way of tracking and has some merit, we used a similar system in Radio to track campaigns, I would like to hear Kris & Olivier’s perspective on his theory. Talk about a hot topic with some very talented and passionate people, this would make a great panel on Owen Greaves LIVE! (I’m working on it).

I do recommend you visit each one’s website or Blog and see what they are doing and how they are doing it, contact them and ask the questions, I’ve listed them for you:

No they all aren’t Marketers in the traditional form but they do need to understand how obtain a form of ROI. There are many that claim Social Media Expert Status, many think they have a clear understanding of what an ROI is, in my opinion they aren’t and they don’t get ROI.

I’m certain this topic will never really go away because many will have an opinion, many will claim they have the secret formula, the list that do is very, very short. I love this kind of dialogue so I’ll keep bringing it.